


to be a firebird alone

by rabbitprint



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Beauty - Freeform, Established Relationship, M/M, Phoenixes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:34:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27537649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitprint/pseuds/rabbitprint
Summary: Set pre-Sundering, spoilers for 5.3 MSQ and Tales from the Shadows. Emet-Selch/Lahabrea.The definition of beauty is a wide thing in Amaurot. It must be, in order to encompass the breadth of all reality within it. There can be no standard which prizes the elaborate without also honoring that which is simple. Delicate and sturdy, broad and narrow, curved and direct: they are all necessary together.The only one among them who holds no partiality is Lahabrea.
Relationships: Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Lahabrea
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	to be a firebird alone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlackJacketsandPens](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/gifts), [Redbudtree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redbudtree/gifts).



> _Prompt from BlackJacketsandPens: "I thought I’d ask for an Emet-Selch/Lahabrea prompt on my and a friend (Redbudtree on AO3)’s behalf, maybe centered around the fact that in this year’s short story Emet-Selch explicitly called Lahabrea ‘beautiful’ (and in every language to boot!). I guess it’d be very 5.0-5.3 spoilery, most definitely, but neither of us have any real Do Not Wants!"_

The definition of beauty is a wide thing in Amaurot. It must be, in order to encompass the breadth of all reality within it. There can be no standard which prizes the elaborate without also honoring that which is simple. Delicate and sturdy, broad and narrow, curved and direct: they are all necessary together.   
  
Life and death. Predator and prey.   
  
Everyone has a preference, and so a large part of business in the Bureaus is finding a common language to bridge them all. Amaurot is a place where both fire and ice must be allowed to coexist side-by-side, and be revered as equal in value. The thinnest, most fragile layer of frost is no less breathtaking than a finely-polished diamond. A seamless slab of clay requires as much attention in its making as a marble spire.  
  
Even so: they _all_ have their preferences. Many Amaurotines bond together on favored aesthetics throughout the centuries, floating from one social circle another as they experiment with their personal tastes. Halmarut would prefer it if the city was transformed into a living jungle -- better for ecological balance, as she always says, which pits her directly against Emet-Selch and his love of clean, geometric lines. He can see her point -- analytically. He can agree with her, on matters of _less_ significant import. But there is a pure joy that sparks within his chest whenever he crafts shapes of solid immutability, knowing the unity of one stone upholding another, supporting archways which can tower into the sky only because their hidden foundations never waver beneath the weight.  
  
The only one among them who holds no partiality is Lahabrea.   
  
But though the possibilities are endless, there is one criteria which can hold all of their people together, gathering Amaurot's myriad voices into its arms. Beautiful things are those which benefit the community. It is a quality which inspires others to continue creating, and therefore, beauty is inspiration itself: a warmth that shares and nurtures, that elevates others and kindles that same light within them until every soul it touches shines like a sun.  
  
Beautiful describes Lahabrea in every way and form.

* * *

Like every Convocation member, Lahabrea holds a workshop session once a month in his Words, open to a varying range of junior researchers, trainees, and other crafters. Advance reminders always come Emet-Selch's way; the chamber's protective wards must be checked beforehand, carefully prepared to absorb and redirect any uncontrolled aether before it can leak free. The task can be performed by any number of other Amaurotines, namely Lahabrea himself -- but Emet-Selch has always preferred to see to them personally even before he joined the Convocation, ever since one concept blew out an entire exterior wall several centuries back, smashing through multiple load-bearing supports and nearly bringing the entire Akadaemia Anyder down.   
  
Gathered in nervous clusters at their desks, crystal matrices glittering in the air, the Amaurotines who attend all bear a mixture of trepidation and terrified awe. They spend the first bell of each session trying to bring their concepts to life in the most basic outlines, pure points of aether floating in place, safely caged within each protective bubble around their tables. Then, distracted by the sights and sounds around them, their ideas begin to veer.   
  
When they pause for the first break, sheepishly offering up their designs for review by the rest of the assembly -- their concepts still half-formed, or falling apart into new structures inspired by watching their peers -- it is Lahabrea who gently addresses their discouragement.   
  
"It is all beautiful," Lahabrea always tells them, perched upon a desk after inevitably wandering free of his lecture podium. "It is _all_ of great value."  
  
And then -- as if welcoming every mistake as pure innovation -- he gathers each concept to him one by one, every single misshapen thing that has been formed from either unskilled hands or imaginations, and talks about them.   
  
Each idea is examined in detail. With every concept, Lahabrea demonstrates how to coax out the heart of its maker's intended goal, untangling snarls of aether and unwrapping physical forms. He never alters them directly, or insists that his method is necessary to fix them. Instead, after discussing the alternatives, Lahabrea simply tosses the construct back to each student so that they can continue explorations of their own -- so that they, too, can learn the joy of creation, and embrace the ideas they are learning to slowly pull out of their souls and into the light.   
  
"What we build is one long chain." It is one of Lahabrea's favorite lines. "The ideas we share now are intended to inspire future Amaurotines for generations to come. We each have the capacity to expand our star and add our strength to it. No concept goes unnoticed."  
  
Then with a flick of his hand, their Speaker draws new forms effortlessly into being, spinning them across the workshop. Illusions of trees covered with butterflies instead of leaves, beastkin with six furred wings, oceans that sing serenades with every lap of the tide. He raises fire in their minds and in their souls, until they begin to gather enough confidence in themselves to take more steps forward with their designs, pushing through their embarrassment and into the purity of their own dreams.   
  
Emet-Selch has never participated in these sessions directly. One Convocation member is enough to intimidate the students; additional mentors could choke their inspiration past any ability to manifest it. Taking on his new position has given Emet-Selch his own architects to coach anyway, inherited from the previous holder of his title. Joining the Convocation has inflicted far more duties upon him than even he expected -- another topic to needle Hythlodaeus about.  
  
Despite the extra load on his new schedule, however, Emet-Selch sets aside time when the next notice comes through, checking on the wards as the students file in and returning well before the end.   
  
The workshop this time is a lively one: an evening session that runs long after three researchers band together in an improvisational fusion of their concepts, aether exploding everywhere and spattering off the shields. Lahabrea, of course, encourages it all; he is the one laughing hardest in delight as the entire floor takes on its own life, rippling its tiles in violent convulsions like a beastkin trying to shake off fleas.   
  
But the wards perform their job sufficiently, constraining the damage solely to the workroom, and Emet-Selch lingers in the corners until the very last student has packed up their matrix and left, their smiles giddy with excitement.   
  
When he steps out of the shadows, clapping slowly in droll applause, he can feel his boots crunch on stray crystals. "Shall I help you tidy up, Lahabrea?"  
  
Lahabrea straightens up from digging underneath his desk for a spare matrix. "Hades!" His face breaks back into a fresh grin. "Did you _see_ that one idea that botanist had? Plants that can turn into mud, and travel through the earth directly until they find better soil conditions to root themselves in anew. Like treants, but underneath the loam! We've seen similar concepts before, but they've always left traces of their aether behind, and the contamination has never been successfully navigated. Brilliant, truly _brilliant_ , Halmarut will have to watch out for that one."  
  
The man's enthusiasm is insidious. Emet-Selch struggles to keep his expression stoic and fails utterly, his mouth curving up at the corners despite his better judgement. "If it keeps her too distracted to veto the new aqueduct I have in mind, then their design has _my_ vote," he remarks wryly and waves at the workroom, its wards overcharged and sputtering. "Shall we?"  
  
Lahabrea is always at his best after these times, still riding on the exhilaration of new ideas -- at his best _and_ his worst, his attention a fickle thing. Most of the excess aether has been soaked up into the room's wards, already in the process of being slowly neutralized. The rest has been crystallized into solid slivers of energy, which can be safely pared down to their basic elements and discarded.   
  
Emet-Selch scoops up the nearest chunk of stone -- mottled yellow and blue, earth and water -- and holds it up for examination against the light. "You always tell them that their work astounds you, Lahabrea."  
  
"Because everything I see _is_ astounding, Emet-Selch." Confronted by the dilemma of so much stray debris, Lahabrea merely holds up his fingers, twisting together a nexus of energy into the shape of an empty hourglass. It tilts further and further and then cracks one of its lids open to hungrily pull at the earth aether around it. The nearby aspected crystals tremble, and then are drawn into the air as the hourglass spins on its axis. One by one, they are masticated into grains of sand as they are forced through the glass's neck into the bottom chamber, trapped despite how rapidly the contraption whirls.   
  
"Oh?" Emet-Selch gestures to the workroom around them, with its four walls and simple ceiling: the same structure as any other chamber in the Words, uniform in construction and purpose. "Even this?"  
  
" _Everything_ ," Lahabrea repeats, narrowing his eyes at the hourglass as it dips momentarily in the air, weighed down by the grains it is ravenously ingesting. He stabilizes it with a touch and then sends it bobbing back up for another round. "Even you," he continues, grinning as he turns his attention to Emet-Selch next. "Magnificent Hades, master of the Underworld -- now the newest Emet-Selch, and stuck with us whether you like it or not. We should make something together soon, in commemoration of your position. It has been far too long since we collaborated."  
  
Mention of his very skills reminds Emet-Selch of another piece of unfinished business. In his hand, the malformed crystal stirs, tugging against his grip until he finally opens his fingers and lets it tumble through the air to join the rest.   
  
He clears his throat. "I am sorry I killed your firebird."  
  
Any attempt at sincerity is instantly dismissed by the _deeply_ unconvinced look that Lahabrea delivers him over the rolling whirlwind of aether. "You are _not_." As the flow of earth energy slows and runs dry, he caps the hourglass with a sweep of his hand, catching it around its waist and setting it neatly on the desk. The second one he summons attracts a steady stream of lightning aether. "'Tis for the best, I suppose. When I discovered that the concept had caught a soul, I admit that I became intrigued by the possibilities. The initial intent of it was a potential Final Design, you know. A last gift of my own life's aether to Amaurot -- a bird that would be ever-reborn, shining in eternal promise to future generations of creators yet to bloom."  
  
He unmakes the blackboard next, transmuting its structure into a single, desiccated sheet of chalk that crumbles to the floor in a fountain of dust. "But then, when it had proven itself strong enough to hold another spirit intact, I thought -- why not? Why _not_ abandon this limited shell of mine and see if my own making might carry me forward with it? To exist eternally, if only to observe our people continuing to grow?"  
  
"I had to end its form," Emet-Selch points out dryly. The desks are all coated with a protective layer of aether, now scratched and deformed after hard use. He lays his fingers on the corner of the nearest one and then peels up a corner of the sheet, pulling it away from the surface. Even the distraction of that task cannot block out his memory of the firebird's suffering: its unhinged desperation as it had thrown itself against its own restraints, challenging the world to kill it before it could find a way to get free. Too anguished to live, it had screamed for its own death. "'I would call it an inauspicious portent, in light of that."  
  
Lahabrea waits until the blackboard's particles finish dissolving the rest of the way into loose aether before offering a shrug. "Better to perish by your hand than anyone else's, I suppose. I would rather have a friend there beside me, when I should choose to go."  
  
After gathering up the rest of the shed aether and resetting the furnishings -- a fresh blackboard, clean tables, wards purged and emptied -- they retire to Emet-Selch's home for the evening. It is his own choice, knowing what a mess Lahabrea's residence is likely in. His own quarters remain disorganized from his recent elevation to the Convocation, suddenly overflowing with a million concepts he must read through and documents to review, but at least none of them are prone to exploding.   
  
Their dinner is simple fare of sauteed vegetables and bread dipped in oils and spice, coated with cheeses. It is a concept that Emet-Selch has summoned before, and he chooses to create it directly, rather than prepare each step by hand. It is a decision he thanks himself for almost instantly when Lahabrea swoops into the kitchen, scooping up both plates before they are entirely ready and erasing the carrots while they are still cooling off.   
  
But even if the meal is straightforward, the company is not. Lahabrea fills the air with eager conversation, rattling off every concept he has seen that day, as if Emet-Selch is a recording crystal instead of a man. He is insatiable in his need to digest ideas instead of food, forgetting to actually eat what is on his plate; after taking a few, arbitrary bites, he gets up and wanders around Emet-Selch's sitting room instead, investigating all the new documents and asking questions about _them_ instead.   
  
He pokes and prods at all the concepts stacked up on the tables, sparking aether responses in the crystals as they obediently begin to enact their initiation routines -- until finally, Emet-Selch catches him against a bookshelf, trapping the man's hands and leaning forward to give Lahabrea's mouth something better to do than talk.   
  
Afterwards, sprawled on one of Emet-Selch's couches, they both drowse together in a careless heap. Lahabrea's overabundance of energy had taken a while to exhaust, but the effort was worth it; the man lies tame against Emet-Selch's body, too relaxed to bother getting up again. With a snap of his fingers, Emet-Selch idly transforms a wall into glass so that they can see the stars slowly peeking out of the evening clouds, like jewels suspended in the currents of the Underworld as it illuminates the sky.  
  
Lahabrea finds his other hand, tugging on it in a playful demand. "So, when will you create with me again, Emet-Selch?"  
  
Emet-Selch pretends to scowl. " _Never_ , if you cannot bring yourself to focus on practical ideas instead of fancies. But there _is_ a project that I've been putting off for a bit -- a more precise energy formula for creating right angles on main throughways." _That_ particular item has been sitting on his desk for over five hundred years, waiting patiently for him to attend it. Now that he has been elected to the Convocation, he has no excuse to avoid it. "You'll love it, I assure you."   
  
Lahabrea, predictably, makes an exaggerated groan into Emet-Selch's chest. "Something _new_ ," he complains, but then drops both their clasped hands onto Emet-Selch's stomach, settling further into place as his weight turns boneless with relaxation. "Something revolutionary. The Amaurotines in years to come will be even better than us both, and we must leave something appropriate to help them along their way. You are an architect, Emet-Selch. Imagine what new and unexplored forms Amaurot will take beneath _their_ vision."  
  
He has, more than once. It is a nerve-wracking thought, if he must be honest with himself -- a generation exactly like Lahabrea would bring certain disaster to any efforts towards the standardization of building codes -- and yet, he cannot be too fearful. Emet-Selch's own work proves it. Each stone upholds another. Each bridge is one of trust.  
  
From the smallest brick to the most ornate cornice, all of Amaurot has already joined together to build its towers towards the sky.  
  
"Your firebird," he prods, the stray thought floating up to the surface once more. "What finally made you decide not to become it?"  
  
Lahabrea stirs, shaking his head with a murmur; he has betrayed the conversation by drifting towards sleep. "It simply seemed that even the phoenix I envisioned would not be nearly potent enough for what I needed. If the very worst disaster should strike, then in the ruins of this star millenia from now, I would be the only Amaurotine left. No Convocation, no fellow makers. A teacher with no students, a crafter with no workroom. On my own, I would not have the strength needed to spark life back into the ashes. To be a firebird alone," he admits softly, "seems a very lonesome thing."  
  
"Then it is in _all_ our best interests if you remain yourself, I see." Emet-Selch is speaking half into the cushions of the couch by now, feeling the need for sleep begin to drag him under as well. He is relaxed, at ease; Lahabrea's presence is a familiar, pleasant warmth that reassures him on every level, luring him to focus only on pure satisfaction and little more. It would be best if they both slept anyway, even if they end up remaking the couch in the middle of the night to be more comfortable. There is a mountain of paperwork waiting for him tomorrow to sort through, and Emet-Selch cannot unmake _that_.   
  
The fingers of his right hand find the hollow of Lahabrea's hip. The skin is soft there and he rubs his thumb across it affectionately, careful not to tickle the nerves. Their legs are tangled, feet hooked clumsily together so that they kick each other every time they adjust their weight. He shifts, turning his head enough so that he is not smothering himself on Lahabrea's hair, and lets his thoughts float in welcome lassitude.  
  
He is barely awake when Lahabrea speaks again. "Mayhap we have had it all wrong, Emet-Selch." His words are slurred with drowsiness; he may already be dreaming, for all Emet-Selch knows. "That beauty... is _not_ what is best for the community after all, and we have laboured under a delusion. Beauty is simply the act of loving something, or of being loved in turn."  
  
Emet-Selch feels his mouth twitch in a smile. "Then you are the most beautiful creature I have ever known," he manages to murmur, barely coherent with the last word, and reaches out to pull Lahabrea closer, all the way down into sleep.

* * *

Lahabrea shines with a different brilliance after the Sundering, but one which is no less sublime to look upon.   
  
In terms of casualties, their destruction is nearly complete. None of their people outside of Amaurot have survived. Of the Amaurotines, only three of the Convocation had managed to escape the fracturing of their souls. Of that number, one is already failing.   
  
Reduced in such a fashion, Emet-Selch expects that Lahabrea's spirit will be dimmed completely, smothered beyond any recovery.   
  
Instead, the man refuses all the more fiercely to allow himself to dwindle. He has no other canvas save himself, and so he smears every color of their story across it -- betrayal, death, failure -- vaulting between vessels of mortal flesh as if one might surprise him someday by sprouting wings of its own.   
  
As the eons stretch on, Lahabrea turns to his own mind to sustain him, cannibalizing his very passions so that he can continue to burn. He sacrifices himself to his own pyre: his mind, his identity, his values, all charring underneath the weight of frantic destruction. He turns monstrous in every way, face and belief and form, all his brilliant thoughts squeezed into jangling, discordant notes, as one might tear a fruit into pulp in hopes of one final drop of sweetness.   
  
He has become a firebird after all, in the end. Trapped in endless immortality, bludgeoning himself against walls that refuse to break. He bleeds against them in gouts of grief, and still they do not budge an ilm. Zodiark's command keeps him burning; he reignites purely from their god's command, blazing and reborn anew each time he takes another body and wails with a different voice. He has made himself into a masterwork, a lesson for others to read; he has become a painting rather than the painter, transforming himself into a concept that howls through the rift and begs for hands that can end his misery.  
  
In the end, even the art of creation crumbles away from Lahabrea's grasp, and so Emet-Selch does it for him.  
  
As Lahabrea scars his way across the dreams of mortals, Emet-Selch follows in his path, sowing whispers behind in the civilizations that he raises. He leaves tales for parents to pass down to their infants, legends of phoenix cries: ever-wandering, ever lost. Haunted by its own virility even as it flings itself against the bars of its own existence in search of release, searching across the ashes of a battered star for any sign of a hope that extinguished itself long ago.  
  
Across the different reflections, the phoenixes which rise like embers in the shadow of Lahabrea's travels all wake with grief already in their mouths, though they do not know the true reasons why.  
  
Beautiful things are those which enrich the community. Which inspire one's peers and companions to grow. Which speak of life and creativity, of the potential to build together and believe in a future filled with joy.  
  
But there is no good of the community here, for all of Amaurot and its peers have become long-buried bones, and the only thing that benefits them now is wholesale slaughter. There are no fellow researchers chattering eagerly in the halls about new concepts. There are no collaborations of design.  
  
All of Lahabrea's students are dead.  
  
But there is one last potential qualifier for the word, one suggestion whispered idly into the night, and Lahabrea has never failed to meet it. Even as wreaths of fire blossom from his hands in feathered arcs as he tears apart placid towns and peaceful civilizations; even as he makes enemies of his own kind, slaughters engineers in their workshops and artists in their studies, breaks every principle of aesthetics and sane behavior that Amaurot has ever upheld. Each scrap of Lahabrea's mockery is a fluted song of agony: for vengeance, for the fallen, for the fate that he has found himself in which is every bit as horrifying as he had imagined.   
  
With each fresh blaze that their Seeker leaves on reality itself, Emet-Selch looks upon the wreckage of the man who had once been there, and he does not flinch. Lahabrea may have lost everything else -- but one fact has never changed.  
  
He remains loved.  
  
He remains beautiful.  
  
No other definition exists for Emet-Selch now, save this.  
  



End file.
